Another fracking Saudi conspiracy story, or Chapter 11 is a marvelous invention

Mike Smitka Let me revisit a topic that matters a lot to the auto industry, what's happening in the energy sector. Frank Gaffney, of th...

US Employment relative to Population Growth

Mike Smitka, Economics, Washington & Lee Univ Today's Employment Situation. Adding jobs isn't enough, because our population is ...

The US Market: How many brands, how many models?

Mike Smitka, Economics, Washington & Lee Univ Toyota will eliminate the Scion brand; Ford is withdrawing from Japan. In the US, Suzuki, ...

Radio Show: Looking Backward, Looking Forward

Mike Smitka Professor of Economics, Washington and Lee University WREL Lexington (VA) is changing its format, so today is my last regular ra...

Generational War: Do Older Worker Squeeze Today's Young Out of Jobs? Weekly WREL Radio Show

Click on Figures to enlarge! Figure 1 Mike Smitka I generally focus on the medium-run picture of the US labor market, the recovery process f...

Thursday morning radio: the economy on WREL

Mike Smitka Well, I've gone through another week without a post on the auto industry, but Thursday has come and my WREL Lexington (VA) r...

Low oil prices: not a Saudi conspiracy

Mike Smitka Saudi Arabia is not what it used to be. Their petroleum and other liquids production in 2014, at 11.6 million barrels per day [...

Employment: tortoise slow, tortoise steady?

Since Summer 2011 job growth has generally outpaced population growth, adjusting for the retirement of the baby boomers. However, it's a...

Promises versus Deliverables: Jeb Bush and 4% Growth

Jeb Bush has set the presidential race pace with a promise of 4% growth . Other contenders, Democratic and Republic, will make similar promi...

US Inflation

Here are 4 graphs that give an overview of inflation from the perspective of both producers and consumers. Data are percent change from the ...